3 Things to Do in Okayama

Okayama sits on the Seto Inland Sea coast between Osaka and Hiroshima, and most travelers pass through without stopping. That is a mistake. The city holds one of Japan's three great landscape gardens, a striking black castle, and the best fruit you will eat anywhere in the country.

1. Korakuen Garden

Korakuen is one of Japan's three most celebrated landscape gardens, alongside Kenrokuen in Kanazawa and Kairakuen in Mito. Built in 1700 by the local lord, the garden covers 14 hectares and was designed for strolling: winding paths lead past ponds, tea groves, plum orchards, and open lawns that were radical for their time (most Edo gardens were dense and enclosed).

The garden's genius is its borrowed scenery. Okayama Castle's black silhouette rises beyond the garden's eastern edge, and the surrounding hills frame every view. In spring, cherry trees bloom along the central path. In autumn, the maple groves near the south gate turn. In summer, the iris fields fill with purple.

Walk slowly. The garden changes character every few hundred meters. The tea house near the center serves matcha with a view of the main pond.

2. Okayama Castle

The castle's black exterior earned it the name "Crow Castle," a deliberate contrast to the white "Heron Castle" of neighboring Himeji. The original was built in 1597, destroyed in World War II, and reconstructed in concrete in 1966. The interior functions as a museum of local history. The top floor has views over Korakuen Garden and the Asahi River.

The castle and garden face each other across the river, connected by a bridge. See both on the same morning.

3. The Fruit

Okayama's climate, mild, sunny, and shielded from typhoons by the Chugoku Mountains, produces Japan's finest white peaches and Muscat of Alexandria grapes. The peaches arrive in July and August: pale, fragrant, and so tender they bruise if you look at them wrong. The muscats come in late summer through autumn, each grape the size of a small plum.

Fruit parfaits are Okayama's signature dessert. The cafes near Okayama Station compete to build the most elaborate constructions of seasonal fruit, cream, and mochi. These are not fast food. They take time. The fruit quality justifies it.

At the station area, Kibitsu-jinja shrine is worth the 20-minute train ride. The 400-meter covered corridor connecting the main hall to the subsidiary shrine is one of the most photogenic structures in western Japan.

Getting There

Okayama Station is a Shinkansen stop: 45 minutes from Osaka, 40 minutes from Hiroshima. The castle and garden are 20 minutes on foot from the station, or a short streetcar ride.